


Through Fog and Misted Glass

by Disenchantress



Series: I Write Origins, Not Tragedies [2]
Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Dalish Origin, F/M, Origins Story Romance, corrupted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-27 21:27:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6301039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Disenchantress/pseuds/Disenchantress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is nothing Tamlen would not have done for Lurai Mahariel. But the time was never right to tell her so.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Through Fog and Misted Glass

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry. If it helps at all, this made me cry just to write, too.

Tamlen’s first memory was Lurai Mahariel. He had been only four years old at the time and was clutching his mother’s leg in terror of the fog rolling off the fens. Lurai was younger by nearly two full seasons but already fearless, and she had wanted Tamlen to be too. So when she couldn’t drag him out to play, she showed him the fog was harmless as only a little Dalish girl could: she dragged Ashalle into it instead and danced in circles, laughing. Swirling around in the mist, Lurai was all huge blue eyes, unruly red hair, and bubbly laughter.

Even at three years old, she was already the most beautiful thing in the world.

Summers later, they would spend most of their time finding various ways to distract Ashalle or Tamlen’s mother or whichever member of the clan was minding them, so they could escape camp to explore the wetlands. This would usually only last so long before their imaginations would take over, turning them into emerald knights and the sparse foliage into Halamshiral.

Try as he might, Tamlen could never recall most of their adventures in the fens, but after their clan relocated to the southern forests of Ferelden, Lurai wouldn’t stop talking about them. When she remembered dancing in the fog for him, they laughed together as they foraged for elfroot at the edges of camp and he was secretly glad she didn’t remember she had only done it to show him not to be afraid. He didn’t want her to know bravery hadn’t always come naturally to him.

Arlathvhen was in the Korcari Wilds that year, the first one Tamlen was old enough to remember. He and Lurai were still da’len, too young to take part in anything but the festivities, and since the clansmeet meant plenty of other children to play with, the first few days were more fun than they could ever remember having. Unfortunately, that was also what made it turn awful before the end.

Tamlen noticed the boy staring before anyone else did. He was older than they, or at least taller than Tamlen, and he seemed to be frowning at Sarya, the girl weaving dawn lotus blossoms into Lurai’s vivid hair. After a few suspicious glances, Tamlen called to Lurai to look, and then the boy dropped all pretense of stealth and started marching toward them.

Lurai, ever as steady as ironbark, just watched calmly as the strange boy approached and glared at her. He then grabbed Sarya’s arm and made to drag her away, but the little girl dug in her heels and lashed out at him. Lurai and Tamlen moved at the same moment, but Lurai was closer and had already shoved the boy back into the grass before he could react.

That did it. The boy cut his hand open on a rock, Sarya screamed, and every child within earshot was suddenly craning their necks to see what had happened.

“Are you alright?” Lurai asked, kneeling beside him, and Tamlen could see she already regretted hurting him, even if she had been trying to defend her new friend.

The boy however clearly didn’t, because he jerked his injured hand away, glaring dar’misu at her. “Keep your filthy hands off me!” he snapped, and Lurai drew back like she had been scalded. “And stay away from my sister! Sarya, don’t listen to a thing she tells you. She’s the harel’lin!”

There was a collective gasp from several of the children gathering around; Sarya actually clapped her hands over her mouth and backed away. Lurai frowned, more confused than she was before, but Tamlen was furious. He knew more elvish than she and while she was trying to puzzle out why this strange boy thought her a trickster, Tamlen was able to piece it together.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Tamlen challenged, going to stand beside Lurai and trying to make himself look taller so he could glare more imposingly. “There’s nothing wrong with her blood, and you’re mad if you think so.”

“My…?” Lurai looked first at Tamlen and then narrowed her eyes at the stranger boy. “And why would I have tricks in my blood? That doesn’t even make sense!”

The boy scoffed and shot her a condescending look. “It doesn’t mean trickster’s blood, stupid. It means _traitor’s_ blood. Like your cursed mother.”

Tamlen looked quickly to Lurai, and the expression on her face was painful to see. It was a mixture of disbelief and horror—Ashalle, as far as he had heard, had never spoken much about her mother—and then Lurai broke into that sputtering sort of rage she only mustered up when she wanted to prove she wasn’t hurt.

“Wh—I can’t even—that’s ridiculous! Ashalle told me—my mother was a _hunter_!”

“Tevar,” Sarya whimpered, tugging on the boy’s sleeve. “Tevar, let’s just go, Mamae will be angry if—”

The boy called Tevar stood up slowly but didn’t seem to hear her. He was still glaring straight at Lurai as he spat, “She was. _Our_ hunter. Until she ran away when she was supposed to be on night watch. She was a kinslayer, did you know that? Shemlen attacked when she deserted us and we had no warning, and my mother’s sister _died_. Your mother was a traitor. _That’s_ what’s in your blood.”

“You’re lying,” Lurai said, but it was a whisper, not an accusation. Tamlen looked at her in concern and could see the doubt in her eyes. What _had_ Ashalle ever told her about her parents? Once he considered it, he couldn’t remember a thing…

“ _I’m_ not the harel’lin,” Tevar snapped, taking hold of Sarya’s wrist again with his uninjured hand. “Come on, Sarya. The rest of you should get away from that thing, too.”

Lurai looked as stunned and hurt as if he had just slapped her across the face before he walked away. But it wasn’t until she looked around and saw that the other children from Sarya and Tevar’s clan were indeed backing away from her that tears started in her wide blue eyes.

“Lurai, don’t listen to him,” Tamlen tried to console her. He reached for her hand but she jerked it away and whirled on her heel, disappearing into the trees before he could stop her. And Tamlen just stood, rooted to the spot and torn between running after her or chasing down Tevar instead, until they were both too far away for him to do either.

When Tamlen made it back to the clan, his mother told him Lurai had returned safely and was talking to Ashalle in their aravel. He would never find out exactly what Ashalle said, but when he sat beside Lurai at the campfire the next morning, something had changed. She had always had trouble sitting still, but suddenly were it not for her taking occasional silent bites of bread, this new Lurai could have been a statue of Sylaise kneeling by the embers. She had pulled her vivid hair back into a long braid that made her look older somehow, but not nearly as much as her eyes did. They had always been deep blue and dancing but had suddenly become darker and solemn, the flames reflecting sharply in their unfathomable depths.

It took Tamlen three days to get Lurai to smile again, and when she did, it felt like he had been holding his breath underwater the entire time and had just broken the surface for a breath.

It was a full week after Arlathvhen had ended before she finally seemed to relax and another before she spoke of it. When she did, she stared into the starry sky instead of at him as she apologized.

“You’re sorry?” he repeated, puzzled. “For what?”

Uncharacteristically, Lurai didn’t meet Tamlen’s eyes as she spoke. “I shouldn’t have run; I’m sorry. Ashalle told me I scared you. I didn’t mean to. I was just…”

The hesitation in her voice was foreign; Lurai was the type to _do_ , not to debate. He didn’t realize what was happening until she started rubbing at her face with the back of her hand, trying and failing to turn her sob into a laugh.

“Ashalle never talked about my parents,” she managed to say. “Keeper Marethari was the one to tell me my father had been Keeper once, did you know that? When I asked about my mother, she told me I should ask Ashalle. But Ashalle would just say she was a hunter, and they both loved me very much. I… I don’t even know their names.”

Lurai tried to smile, but it fell instantly into misery. And that’s when Tamlen understood. She had been faking her smile, he realized with a sudden, heartrending feeling like a stone dropping into his stomach. She had always been faking her smiles. She had always wondered, but pretended to be so certain of herself anyway, and he had never noticed.

That moment Tamlen would later remember as the first time Lurai Mahariel broke his heart: when he realized her bravery came no more naturally than his did. She had just learned to wear hers earlier.

Seasons passed that turned into years, and eventually Lurai began to return to her former self. She decided she would make her own fate separate from her parents’, and while Tamlen apprenticed to become a hunter, Lurai chose to work for Master Ilen, learning the crafts of their forefathers. She showed talent; there was a real beauty in the things she created, something that Tamlen would tell her was almost like magic.

For his nameday in his fifteenth year, she carved him a medallion with a diving hawk so detailed, he swore its eyes and talons gleamed. A guiding spirit, she called it; a good luck charm, he said, and wore it under his armor at all times.

Then came the day Lurai’s work led her to search the forest for ironbark, and at nightfall she did not return. Tamlen was the first to notice when she didn’t meet him by the fire, but by dawn Ashalle and Ilen had the entire clan organized into groups, scouring the trees for a trail. For three days they searched, and Tamlen’s thumb wore worry lines onto the back of his medallion as he begged the Creators to send her back to him alive.

She was just barely so when Fenarel and Variel finally found her. By the time Tamlen arrived, they had already wrapped her in a blanket and built a gurney to bear her home, but her condition spoke for itself. One of her dar’misu was missing, two broken fingers on her right hand proof that she had fought hard not to let it be taken. She had been beaten, matted hair and purple bruises already tinged with green indicating she had likely been lying there the entire three days. And torn scraps of cloth still littered the forest floor.

It was two more nights before Lurai awoke and broke into sobs in Ashalle’s arms. He had expected this—how could he have not?—but nothing had prepared him for the scream that ripped itself from her throat when she caught sight of him behind Ashalle, silhouetted against the light of the campfire outside.

Never, never in either of their lives, had Tamlen heard Lurai scream like that. And at him. As Ashalle showed him unceremoniously out of the aravel and returned to quiet her, Tamlen found himself shaking, the rage that had settled into his chest when she had been found burning away all thoughts except one.

It was her terror, not her rejection, that had broken his heart for her again.

That must have been when he decided to do it. Tamlen would never remember making the decision, just slinging his bow over his shoulders and setting out through the trees. It was close to a week before he returned; half the clan offered prayers of thanks he wasn’t dead, and Hahren Paivel told him how worried they had been after what had happened to Lurai. They all seemed to believe he had just run away for a while, unable to deal with her horrified greeting, and he didn’t correct them. But when Lurai tried to apologize for it he shook his head, kissed her brow, and pressed her stolen dar’misu into her uninjured hand.

Lurai stared at it, and then at him, for what seemed a very long time before she began to breathe again. When she embraced him there were tears in her eyes once more, but this time tears of relief. He pretended not to notice when they splashed onto his shoulder, just whispered a promise: “They will never hurt you again. No one will.”

But in the days that came, still Lurai changed irrevocably. Though no one spoke the words, she could see the shift in the eyes of some of the clan as they looked upon her with varying degrees of pity. She stopped speaking to many of them and struck up a friendship with the new First instead, perhaps bonding over their mutual exclusion from being normal members of the clan.

No longer did stories of travel or adventure spark light in Lurai’s blue eyes. She resigned her apprenticeship with Master Ilen to become a hunter instead. And the hard look she had always set on her face when she tried to hide pain became her permanent expression.

Lurai let her mask slip only rarely, but when she did, it was well earned. Tamlen would never forget the day he earned his vallaslin, planning to hunt the wolf that had been harassing the halla in the night and finding himself face-to-face with a massive cave bear awoken early from hibernation instead. The hour-long battle was exhausting, requiring all of his cunning, most of his arrows, and costing the right shoulder guard off his armor along with a bit of the flesh underneath. But when he made it back to camp lugging the pelt it was Lurai’s bright eyes that found him first, and he found that her proud smile made his face burn.

Later, after he finished telling the story for the hundredth time, she pulled him away from the fire and the celebrations and kissed him quickly, insisting he never worry her like that again before darting off with her entire face as scarlet as her hair.

It wasn’t until Lurai’s own initiation as hunter that Tamlen understood her worry. Instead of being encouraged to track and hunt a beast on her own, she was paired with Junar and the two were sent to slay the wolves that had been circling the aravels at night. Tamlen had been sure Hahren Paivel must be crazy—a whole pack of wolves against two hunters!—and paced circles around the fire for what felt like hours.

The uproar when Lurai and Junar returned was tremendous. The veteran hunter carried one pelt and an abashed expression; Lurai had a stack of them over her shoulder and was absolutely beaming. It took some time to calm everyone down enough to get the story out of them both, but by the time Junar admitted Lurai had taken down the rest of the pack while he wrestled on the ground with its leader, most of the clan could barely see through tears of laughter. After the third or fourth time Ashalle had hugged Lurai and told her how proud her mother would have been, Hahren Paivel started the singing and Tamlen at last saw the chance to pull Lurai away behind the aravels.

He meant to kiss her softly and tell her not to worry him, as she had done, but it seemed she had possessed significantly more willpower than he. Once his lips met hers, warm and soft as the soul that owned them, he found it impossible to pull away until they both were out of breath.

And as Tamlen looked down into Lurai’s eyes, eyes the deep blue of the sky just before sunrise and reflecting the stars back at him just as clearly, he finally put words to what he had known in his heart since he was a little boy watching her spin around in the fog. He loved her. He had always loved her. It wasn’t something he could say aloud—he, barely a blooded hunter, to she, having just earned her vallaslin but yet to receive it. But he could have sworn he saw the sentiment reflected back at him from her eyes as well.

Somehow, he never found the right time to say the words. He wanted to, just to dull the pain when she sat for her vallaslin, but settled for telling her she looked beautiful. He wanted to when they went on their first hunt together, but it was so perfect to be walking and laughing together again that he couldn’t risk spoiling it. He wanted to when they found a particularly beautiful clearing or waterfall while scouting, when he listened to her singing softly while she worked, when they sat around the fire a thousand different mornings, but the time or the place or the context was never perfect.

And then he had touched a mirror in the darkness, and the time was gone.

Those were the things he wanted to tell her when he saw her again. When for a perfect, crystal-clear moment, her presence broke through the song’s corruption and he grasped blindly for the medallion still tucked away beneath his armor and remembered.

He saw her as she once had been, laughing and dancing in the curling fog. Dragging him along by the hand, so close he could smell ironbark on her skin and lotus blossoms from her hair. Feeling her soft lips and warm breath, her eyes looking into his, reflecting starlight and dreams and words left unspoken.

All the times that he had wanted to tell her and hadn’t, all the times that hadn’t been perfect or right and all the words that had died on the tip of his tongue. This was in all ways the wrong time, worse than every single one he had let pass before. But he was too weak to run and if the song was going to win, if it was going to devour him and use him to sunder her too, he would say it, even if it was the last thing he did.

“Always loved you,” he ground out through clenched teeth, wishing the words were better, wishing he could have said them the way he had always meant to, but they had to be _said_ before the song crushing down on his soul overpowered him and he failed to protect her again. “I’m so sorry!”

The song crescendoed, everything exploded into a cacophony of pain and noise, and he-that-had-been-Tamlen watched as if from behind a glass as his body lunged for her. He didn’t want to watch, to see the things the song would make him do to her. To _her_ , who he had sworn no one would ever hurt again, who only dropped to her knees and looked at him, wearing the same stricken expression he had once killed men for putting on her beautiful face. And it broke his heart one final time that he had been right: she had loved him too, and too much to hurt this damned shell that he couldn’t even control enough to shut his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see her die.

Something hit him hard. At first he thought it was another memory, but the image that flashed before him was a steely-eyed face he had never seen before. Only then did he notice the sky twisting above him, the solid earth under his back, the sharp pains in his neck and his chest. Someone had stopped him, and as the tainted blood poured from his wounds, there was a sudden silence save for the soft _shink_ of steel being pulled from corrupted flesh. The song had faded. The stars were fading above him too but for one tiny moment they shone clearly from a field of deep blue, the color of the sky just before dawn.

A last beautiful, terrible spark of hope brought tears to his ruined eyes just before they clouded over. She would live, his lethallan, his Lurai, the only one he had loved enough to hear through the song.

He hadn’t been able to save her, but she was saved.


End file.
